One man, his dog and a brewery

The one-man-and-his-dog plant workforce concept – the man to feed the dog, the dog to keep the man away from the equipment – is now, it seems, being rolled out in the brewing industry.

Dutch purification systems group Norit has developed a large-scale (2-3 million hectolitre) brewery, which, it claims, requires no production workers for the night shift and just two for the day shift. The first of these highly automated, turnkey breweries has already been built for a customer in Belgium with another underway for a separate customer in China

Automation is just one aspect of the concept, which Norit says can halve both the traditional cost of building a new brewery and the total cost of ownership per hectolitre of beer sold. The concept also features a continuous process layout, with the utilities, brewhouse, filtration, yeast management and fermentation area, wastewater treatment and bottling area all based in a single building measuring just 200 metres by 350 metres.

Process Engineering is preparing an in-depth report on the Norit concept and would welcome readers’ views on this approach and its potential in other process operations.

Please email your views to patrick.raleigh@centaur.co.uk